townspeople

Latin, burgensis.

In general, townspeople are named burgesses in Domesday Book, though other inhabitants are occasionally recorded.

Counting urban populations is a more than usually hazardous operation. Identifying which settlements were townsis
a problem in itself. Within those towns, Domesday Book often itemises
houses, sites and 'plots' rather than people, and sometimes gives no
population count at all. Additionally, many townspeople are described as
though they were rural labourers, and it has been argued than a
significant proportion of the rural population adjacent to towns were
actually townspeople.

On a strict count of those described as burgesses, the urban population
was 3% of the Domesday total; but this is an improbably low figure. The
population of the 112 settlements identified by Darby as towns is
approximately 20,000 households; after allowing for missing figures and
missing towns, this might bring the total to 30,000 households, about
150,000 people, or roughly 8% of the total population. Many historians
would regard this as an under-estimate. It has even been suggested that
the proportion of the population living in towns in 1086 was similar to
that three centuries later, about 10%.